In a major rebuke to the current, anti-union Federal Labor Relations Authority (“FLRA”), on July 31, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed an FLRA decision that had reversed an arbitrator’s determination that a federal agency had violated its collective bargaining agreement when it cancelled the agreement.
Home » News » Federal Appeals Court Reverses FLRA Decision on Basis that FLRA Failed to Defer to Arbitrator
Mon, 08/10/2020
In a major rebuke to the current, anti-union Federal Labor Relations Authority (“FLRA”), on July 31, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed an FLRA decision that had reversed an arbitrator’s determination that a federal agency had violated its collective bargaining agreement when it cancelled the agreement. In the unanimous decision, the three-judge panel found that the FLRA could not substitute its interpretation of a contract for that of the arbitrator as long as the arbitrator’s award drew its essence from the parties’ contract.
The case, National Weather Service Employees Organization v. FLRA, arose when the National Weather Service unilaterally cancelled the parties’ contract in July 2017. The Agency relied upon a contract provision permitting the cancellation of the contract if, 90 days into “formal renegotiations,” neither party had invoked the services of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service or the Federal Service Impasses Panel, two federal agencies that deal with federal labor negotiations disputes. The Union filed a grievance alleging that the Agency had violated the parties’ contract and committed an unfair labor practice by repudiating the contract.
The parties’ dispute turned on interpretation of the term “formal renegotiations.” Because the Union had invoked the services of the Impasses Panel in 2015 due to disputes over the negotiation of ground rules, the Union contended that the Agency could not cancel the contract. The Agency, meanwhile, contended that “formal renegotiations” did not begin until the parties exchanged formal contract proposals in early 2017 and that the Union did not invoke the services of either of the agencies within 90 days of those negotiations. The Arbitrator agreed with the Union’s interpretation of the term “formal renegotiation” and found that the Agency had breached the contract because the Union had contacted the Impasses Panel within 90 days of the start of formal negotiation.
The FLRA, however, vacated the arbitrator’s award, finding that the term “formal renegotiation” could not have begun with the ground rules negotiation because such a finding was, somehow, contrary to the goal of the provision – to incentivize completion of bargaining.
The federal appeals court reversed the FLRA’s decision, finding that the FLRA had improperly substituted its judgment for the Arbitrator’s. The Court explained that the FLRA is to apply a deferential standard in reviewing arbitrator’s awards regarding contractual violations and, as long as the arbitrator’s award is a plausible interpretation of the contract, the FLRA is not to set it aside. Instead of applying the proper standard, the Court found that the FLRA delved into its own interpretation of the contract to reverse the arbitrator. The Court explained that: “the Authority’s sole inquiry under the proper standard of review should have been whether the Arbitrator was ‘even arguably construing or applying the [contract].’ Whether the Arbitrator correctly interpreted the CBA was beyond the scope of the Authority’s review. Yet the Authority engaged in a much more searching review of the Arbitrator’s decision than permitted by law.”
The decision is an excellent result for federal unions nationwide as the current FLRA has repeatedly done exactly what the Court chastised it for doing here: substituting its judgment for an arbitrator’s in order to overturn a union victory. The DC Circuit’s decision will hopefully be a step toward getting the FLRA to stop overstepping its authority, applying the wrong standard, to reverse hard-fought union victories.
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